You're a Wizard, Harry!

This semester I am enrolled in "The Greek and Latin Roots of English." Each class is only 50 minutes long and my professor has taken to sending us emails to supplement the lack of class time. Below is an excerpt from the email he sent regarding Halloween:

"...In native English, "hallow" as noun (as in "All Hallows' Eve) is used as the direct translation of Latin "sanctus, sancti," which comes into French as "saint," whence English "saint." Also, "to hallow" is used as a verb, meaning "to make holy": The traditional translation in English of the so-called Lord's Prayer, or "Our Father," includes the words, "hallowed be Thy name," to translate the Latin "sanctificetur nomen tuum," which in more Latinate English might be, "may Thy name be sanctified."

God knows why J.K. Rowling called her last volume, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." If anybody knows the answer (along with God), and will tell me, you get fifty points for your house..."

Seeing as I apparently enjoy embarrassing myself, I responded to him as follows:

"...To try and squeeze out any logic to Ms. Rowling's "Deathly Hallows" would involve delving into this rather cockamamie world she's created. The legend of the deathly hallows comes from a fairy tale that wizarding parents tell their children and that she subsequently published in "The Tales of Beedle the Bard." As it would turn out, the Deathly Hallows were no mere fairy tale for young Harry Potter and his friends.

While I could shamefully wax poetic on the world of Harry Potter for hours, I'll spare you and make this brief. "The Tale of the Three Brothers" is a story about a run in with a personified Death, resulting in the creation of three of the most powerful magical objects (aka the Deathly Hallows). Whoever could unite the three Hallows is believed to be the Master of Death. Enter Voldemort.

Perhaps it was Ms. Rowling's intent to stress the reverence these items would hold to anyone yearning for invincibility. While anything surrounding death isn't immediately thought of as holy, Lucifer was once an angel and Hades a god, no?

You may reward any and all points to Slytherin house.

All things good,
Brittney"

I was instantly mortified upon sending this email, but there was nothing that I could do at that point. After 2 days and no reply I had thought he found me incredibly pathetic and had a good laugh at my expense; not thinking me worthy enough of a response. I was wrong. Oh, how I was wrong. I awoke today to this gem in my inbox:

"Good heavens, dear Brittney, YOU a SLYTHERIN?!!! If I were the Sorting Hat, I would have put you in Ravenclaw
.

But, well, OK, I guess Slytherin needs its good moral examples, and I can think of no one better than you to lead the way.

And then again, suppose the Sorting Hat had sent Harry Potter into Slytherin: What would have happened then? Would Draco Malfoy have become his ally early on, and Ron and Hermione his foes? Would Snape have made him his special pet? Would Snape have personally instructed him in the creation of all those special recipes in the chemistry book, including the Felix felicis potion? ("Happy of happy," by the way.)

But then, Harry would have had to fall out with Hagrid, I guess ...

I love the episode in Book 6, down at Hagrid's, when Harry has drunk the Felix felicis potion: terrific writing. But the movie version of 6 is the weakest of them all, thus far, IMHO.

Not that I am despairing about Book 7, movie-wise. Reading-wise, Book 7 is terrificly depressing: one horrible slog after another. And worst of all, the temporary alienation of Ron. It is an awfully complicated book, and it is wise of the Rowling movie industry to break it into two parts -- I guess the big challenge is to keep the principal actors still looking like vulnerable young teen-agers, when obviously the actors themselves are blossoming gloriously ...

FYI, entre nous, long ago the Sorting Hat told me that I would be a Hufflepuff.

And have you ever figured out what the etymology of "Horcrux" is? Of course you have: anyway, there are tons of Rowling-derived website out there, explaining every itsy bitsy detail. "Crux, crucis" is Latin, for "cross," as you know. And I am guessing that the "Hor" part comes from the name of the god in Egyptian mythology who is regularly depicted as a falcon. Which relates (in spite of the linguistic barbarism, about which in general I shall have more to say in class) to how, in some Egyptian pictures, the divine falcon brings the vaguely cross-shaped ankh to the worshipper, that being somehow a symbol of life.

Best regards,

Mark Caponigro"